Reading recently that Warwick University has decided to give all its lecturers the title of "professor" (either "assistant professor" for junior staff and "associate professor" for senior lecturers), I couldn't help thinking of WS Gilbert's words: "When everyone is somebody, then no-one's anybody."
It doesn't, however, surprise me, given the semantic gymnastics that have characterised education as a whole in recent years. First, "polytechnics" became "universities" to prove that they were not inferior establishments, and since then, the practice has really caught on in other branches of education.
Schools soon latched onto the giving of pompous titles for straightforward things by replacing departments within the school by "faculties," which sounded much grander.
This semantic chicanery was, of course, just a ploy to cover up the fact that the head of geography might well be a new entrant and, therefore, still a probationer, but his inexperience can be subsumed in being part of a "faculty of humanities," while a lack of physics and chemistry teachers might be not noticed in a "faculty of science".
Several years of assiduous practice brought schools to the position of believing that rebranding equals a better product. The language of industry was brought in to offer kudos; heads and deputies became "senior management" and new, impressive sounding titles sprang up overnight: "head of curriculum development" "pastoral care coordinator;" all carefully constructed to cover up what was really going on in schools.
The next step, of course, was to rebrand whole schools. So "comprehensives" suddenly became "academies" or "specialist schools".
It all smacks of the fantasy of "new lamps for old" where, miraculously, one rub of the lamp will bring the genie to transform a failing system.
What, though, do all these new names, new titles mean to an average parent who just wants a decent school for their child?
Does it mean that if your school is now called an "academy" or a "specialist college" that your child's education will not be disrupted by a collection of uncivilised, rowdy, unteachable Visigoths, who make learning impossible?
Or will all the teachers be expert professionals rather than harassed, worn-out, defeated shadows, unable to stop their classrooms from being beer-gardens while struggling to teach subjects for which they have no qualifications?
"What's in a name?" asked Shakespeare's Juliet. What, indeed!
